Jewish Polemics And Apologetics In The Middle Ages
   HOME
*





Jewish Polemics And Apologetics In The Middle Ages
Jewish polemics and apologetics in the Middle Ages were texts written to protect and dissuade Jewish communities from conversion to Christianity, or more rarely to Islam. The terms polemics (from "battles") and apologetics (from "defence") may be distinguished but may also be considered somewhat subjective. A smaller number of proselytizing text also exists intended to convert Christians, or more rarely Muslims, to Judaism. However, the vast majority of Jewish polemical literature was written in response to Christian polemical writings and with a permanent reference to Christian arguments. Under the pre-Christian and Christianizing Roman Empire Defences of Judaism to Greek, Egyptian and Roman religionists are found in Philo's ''Apology on behalf of the Jews'', and Josephus' ''Against Apion'' as well as other Hellenistic Jewish authors. In the early centuries following the emergence of Christianity from Judaism, but before Christianity's establishment as state religion by Constanti ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Proselytization And Counter-proselytization Of Jews
A number of religious groups, particularly Christians and Muslims, are involved in proselytization of Jews: Attempts to recruit or "missionize" Jews. In response, some Jewish groups have formed counter-missionary organizations to discourage missionary and messianic groups such as Jews for Jesus from using practices that they say are deceptive. Christian missions According to Rabbi Tovia Singer, counter-missionary expert and director of Outreach Judaism, there are well over 1,000 messianic congregations and other missions to the Jews worldwide. A number of Christian denominations have programs to reach Jews. The JTA, a Jewish news service, conducted an extensive analysis of Christian efforts to convert Jews to Christianity and found that some of the largest evangelical denominations – the Southern Baptists, the Assemblies of God, and the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod – have all increased their efforts to evangelize Jews in the recent past. The article states that the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Dialogue Of Timothy And Aquila
The ''Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila'' is a Greek Christian text giving a dialogue, akin to that of Dialogue with Trypho, between Timothy, a Christian, and Aquila, a Jew. The text was earlier thought to date to 200 CE, however recent studies assign a later date, as late as the 6th century. F. C. Conybeare proposed the hypothesis (1898) that two later traditions, the Dialogue of Athanasius and Zacchaeus (Greek, 4th century) and the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (Greek, 6th century), were based on an earlier text, and identified that text as related to the lost Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus The ''Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus'' is a lost early Christian text in Greek describing the dialogue of a converted Jew, Jason, and an Alexandrian Jew, Papiscus. The text is first mentioned, critically, in the ''True Account'' of the anti-Christ ....Sébastien Morlet ''La "démonstration évangélique" d'Eusèbe de Césarée'' 2009 "Dans le même temps, FC Conybeare se fit lui aussi le défens ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cairo Genizah
The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the '' genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, Egypt. These manuscripts span the entire period of Middle-Eastern, North African, and Andalusian Jewish history between the 6th and 19th centuries CE, and comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world. The Genizah texts are written in various languages, especially Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic, mainly on vellum and paper, but also on papyrus and cloth. In addition to containing Jewish religious texts such as Biblical, Talmudic and later Rabbinic works (some in the original hands of the authors), the Genizah gives a detailed picture of the economic and cultural life of the Mediterranean region, especially during the 10th to 13th centuries. Manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza are now dispersed among a numbe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Institute Of Jewish Studies
An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can be part of a university or other institutions of higher education, either as a group of departments or an autonomous educational institution without a traditional university status such as a "university institute" (see Institute of Technology). In some countries, such as South Korea and India, private schools are sometimes referred to as institutes, and in Spain, secondary schools are referred to as institutes. Historically, in some countries institutes were educational units imparting vocational training and often incorporating libraries, also known as mechanics' institutes. The word "institute" comes from a Latin word ''institutum'' meaning "facility" or "habit"; from ''instituere'' meaning "build", "create", "raise" or "educate". ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Hiwi Al-Balkhi
Ḥiwi al-Balkhi (9th century) ( he, חיוי אל-בלכי, also Hiwwi or Chivi) was an exegete and Biblical critic of the last quarter of the ninth century born in Balkh, Khorasan (modern Afghanistan). It is not entirely clear whether Hiwi was a Jew, as suggested by , or whether he was perhaps a member of a gnostic Christian sect . Some claim that he was a member of the ancient Bukharan Jewish community of Central Asia. Criticism of the Bible Hiwi was the author of a work in which he offered two hundred objections to the divine origin of the Bible. Ḥiwi's critical views were widely read, and it is said that his contemporary Saadia Gaon found in Babylonia, in the district of Sura, some school-masters who, in teaching children, used elementary text-books which were based upon Ḥiwi's criticisms. Saadia not only prohibited the use of these books, but combated Ḥiwi's arguments in a work entitled ''Kitab al-Rudd ala Ḥiwi al-Balkhi''. Both Saadia's and Ḥiwi's books are lost. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Holy Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons sharing one ''homoousion'' (essence) "each is God, complete and whole." As the Fourth Lateran Council declared, it is the Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds. In this context, the three persons define God is, while the one essence defines God is. This expresses at once their distinction and their indissoluble unity. Thus, the entire process of creation and grace is viewed as a single shared action of the three divine persons, in which each person manifests the attributes unique to them in the Trinity, thereby proving that everything comes "from the Father," "through the Son," and "in the Holy Spirit." This doctrine ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Emunoth Ve-Deoth
''The Book of Beliefs and Opinions'' ( ar, كتاب الأمانات والاعتقادات, translit=Kitāb al-Amānāt wa l-Iʿtiqādāt) is a book written by Saadia Gaon (completed 933) which is the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism. The work was originally in Judeo-Arabic in Hebrew letters with quotations from the Torah. The first Hebrew translation was done in 1186 by Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon, titled ''Emunot ve-Deot'' ( he, 'אמונות ודעות', italic=no ''Beliefs and Opinions''). An unabridged translation into English by Samuel Rosenblatt was published in 1948. The work is prefaced by an introduction and has ten chapters; it was completed in 933. Premise and introduction The work was mainly written as a defense of Rabbinic Judaism against the views of Karaite Judaism, which rejects the oral law (Mishnah and Talmud). In his detailed introduction, Saadia speaks of the reasons that led him to compose it. His heart was ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Saadia
Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; alternative English names: Rabbeinu Sa'adiah Gaon ("our Rabbi heSaadia Gaon"), often abbreviated RSG (RaSaG); Saadia b. Joseph; Saadia ben Joseph; Saadia ben Joseph of Faym; or Saadia ben Joseph Al-Fayyumi; 882/892 – 942) was a prominent rabbi, gaon, Jewish philosopher, and exegete who was active in the Abbasid Caliphate. Saadia is the first important rabbinic figure to write extensively in Judeo-Arabic. Known for his works on Hebrew linguistics, Halakha, and Jewish philosophy, he was a practitioner of the philosophical school known as the "Jewish Kalam". In this capacity, his philosophical work '' The Book of Beliefs and Opinions'' represents the first systematic attempt to integrate Jewish theology with components of ancient Greek ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Nestorianism
Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian Nestorius (d. 450), who promoted specific doctrines in the fields of Christology and Mariology. The second meaning of the term is much wider, and relates to a set of later theological teachings, that were traditionally labeled as Nestorian, but differ from the teachings of Nestorius in origin, scope and terminology. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines Nestorianism as "The doctrine of Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople (appointed in 428), by which Christ is asserted to have had distinct human and divine persons." Original Nestorianism is attested primarily by works of Nestorius, and also by other theological and historical sources that are related to his teachings in the fields of Mariology and Christology. His theology was influ ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Nestor The Priest
''The Book of Nestor the Priest'', originally titled ''Account of the Disputation of the Priest'' (''Qissat Mujadalat al-Asquf'' ar, قصة مجادلة الأسقف) or its Hebrew textual avatar Sefer Nestor Ha-Komer (written c. 900 CE) is thought to be the earliest surviving anti-Christian Jewish polemic. The original version of the book was written in Judeo-Arabic (Arabic written in Hebrew script with religious terms in their original Hebrew.) and also a translation to Hebrew which confused an opening quote from Nestorius with the name of the author of the book, who is actually unknown. It cites extensively and critically from the New Testament and Church sources. The title ''komer'' (כומר) describes a Christian priest (in modern Hebrew the word is used both for Catholic or Orthodox priests and for Protestant ministers), rather than a kohen or Jewish priest. The text is written as the story of a Christian priest (wrongly named Nestor in the Hebrew translation) who convert ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]